:o :o Wow! I think the Passport may actually be coming back up!! I've been searching out the internal directories in the Passport's files, and I see Passport files are gradually coming back to Shenmue's official site!
http://passport.shenmue.com After looking at Shenmue Passport's executable file with a hex editor, I found the directories of the Passport part of shenmue.com where all the Passport info was held, like downloadable characters for the VMU, profile information, etc. Take a look at this link...
http://passport.shenmue.com/passport_us/ You can browse the files and see that files have recently been added, like these VMU character files in this folder
http://passport.shenmue.com/passport_us/vm_data/atsumt/!!
This data you see coming back into these folders are what was taken down when the Passport closed down 4 years ago. It looks like it's really under construction and we're getting the Passport back! Why? I don't know, but seems like good news to me.
Edited: Haha, check this out! I tried opening another file from the site and look what comes up.
http://passport.shenmue.com/cgi-bin/passport_us/sps/sps.cgi
"Thank you we'll back soon!"
Edit again: What the?? :? :? All those links are dead now. I can't browse the folders in the site anymore. Did anyone else happen to see my links while they were accessible? You know I wouldn't lie about this.
Edit AGAIN: Ohh, I see what they've done. They have just hidden the folders from us by placing an "index.html" into them, so we can't browse their files. The files are still there, though!

Click this link for instance:
http://passport.shenmue.com/passport_us/vm_data/atsumt/vmshmprg.bin
It's the main VMU Goodies file. ;)